Sub-30min 5K Workout 6 of 22

@_@ it was harder dragging myself to the gym on a Sunday than I thought! Was gonna go in the morning but I didn’t manage to muster the will till after lunch… after my eyes got a little tired from starring @ the PC screen for all those hours (was playing FFXIV: ARR). The afternoon was a hot & sunny one, ugh. Good for getting a tan (and skin cancer) at a pool or beach but bad for even a leisure walk, much less a run. Thankfully I didn’t plan for an outdoors run or I’d have bailed.

Right. I’m rambling again.

Workout 6. It is a 4 mile (6.4km) ‘long run’ made up of 5 sets of 0.8km steady (run), 0.4km (walk)… then ending with a 0.4km run. Yeah, it’s a slightly more challenging version of Workout 3. If you haven’t noticed already, the later workouts of the plan build upon the earlier ones. It’s basically the same thing that I’ve done before, but longer, and hence more difficult.

Unlike what I did with Workout 3, I didn’t tweak anything this time cos there isn’t a need to on a treadmill and I was rather wary about the distance. 4 miles would be my longest ‘run’ till date. I started off with a 0.2km warm-up walk at 5kph, done my steady segments at 9kph, slow at 5.5kph and the final 0.4km steady at 9.5kph. Ended with a 0.1km cool-down at 5kph, bringing my total distance covered to 6.7km.

Felt great. It was a step up from what I’ve ever been doing, but isn’t particularly exhausting. Felt a little guilty about doing my steady sections that slow but meh… am gonna try ignore that guilt and keep reminding myself to do everything in moderation. I’ve made significant progress already, considering that I started off my Z5K with jogging at 6.5kph (no kidding!)

That being said, I’ve sorta decided. For Workouts that are 4:00 run + 1:00 walk, I’ll run the steady portions at 9.5kph; fast portions will be 10kph; and steady portions for the “long runs” will be at 9kph (the subsequent 2 long runs in the plan worry me a little – 5.5 miles & 7 miles… what the ****).